...Liked the look of these two the other day whilst I spent a happy hour at a Waterstone's graphic novel section.....both would appear to make valuable additions to my Superman collection-which is best?

I prefer Grant Morrison's Men of Steel. I think generally Birthright is more acclaimed and more loved by the fans.

The main difference is what you are going for. Birthright gives you a complete,streamlined origin. You see the destruction of Krypton, Clark raised by the Kents, his years before the suit, his first appearance as Superman and his first Super-villian.

While Grant takes most of those things as a given and gives an incomplete version of Supes that already wears the suit (kinda), that is completed until the end, an homage to the golden age and a nod to the Silver age. Grant's story is definetely more story-driven with an action packed,fast pace rhythm. I think from the two Grant's story is more fun while Birthright is more complete. You get the destruction of Krypton and all that in Grant's story but it doesn't connect to the main story as opposed to Birthright and it certaintly isn't as fleshed out, it does connect to the later volumes though.

Also I have a slight preference for Morales' art. While his later issues were rushed, the first volume has some fantastic art, very dynamic and action packed.
While Yu's art was good, he was still at his earlies and his art has improved a lot since then but the main reason I didn't like the art as much was the coloring. I think Anderson did a fantastic job at AC with the colors.

Like Squalleon said, men of steel is a partial origin whereas birthright is a complete one. i love em both but favor birthright a smidge more in terms of an 'Origin' story. I think at the end of the day it would come down your own personal preference with respect to art and story.

Birthright easily,but both are leagues ahead of the pointless Secret Origins.

Birthright. I'd recommend both though.

Birthright though Morrison's AC is also excellent.

AC for me.

AC without a doubt, but both would work.

Birthright brought back needless silver age crap, so..........

AC

What "needless Silver age crap?"

@manofstealitall: Lex and Clark as "bffs"

@bsaa: That's it? I thought thought it was done very well. They weren't "best friends" like in Smallville, they grew up in the same town and for a brief time had some common ground. Unfortunately their upbringing was so different that a potentially great man like Lex Luthor became petty and twisted

Neither. Birthright was barely decent to begin with, and then completely crashed in the second half. Not to mention pointless and irritating crap like Superman's stupid rationalization for vegetarianism, the equally stupid aura-vision, and the entire scenario in the gun shop which feels like Waid just shoving his politics where they don't belong. But then, I dislike Mark Waid in general, so that might taint my perception of the story just a bit.

Morrison's stuff is far superior, but suffers from the usual Morrison downfalls - Superman feels less like an actual character and more like an abstract concept (which results in characters like Steel being far more interesting despite getting about 1/10th the page time), general lack of emotion throughout, and Morrison's insistence on placing themes and ideas above character, consistency, coherence and satisfactory execution.

To top it all off, Vyndktvx was just not at all interesting, Super-Doom was eye-rolling, Xa-Du is a poor man's Jax-Ur, and I still can't figure out why the f**k Captain Comet was in this. And holy crap, it really annoyed me when we had all these "Superman inspires people" moments, which really just seemed code for "Superman lies around incapacitated, groaning in pain and doing f**k all, while others kick ass and save the day". This is the "badass" Superman we were promised?

In general I just don't like any of Superman's "official origins", but Morrison's stuff is the top dog for now.